Sobre Masa on More Than a Tortilla

Owners: Diana Wangeman & Zack Wangeman

Brooklyn, NY, USA

“What started as sharing the food we missed grew into both a restaurant and, eventually, a tortillería.”

The Story

Sobre Masa began with nostalgia.

When Chef Zack Wangeman was living in New York, he missed the food, tortillas, and everyday flavors from home (Oaxaca); not only as dishes, but as a feeling. The warmth of a fresh tortilla, the smell of corn on the comal, the way masa connects people to home, memory, and community.

Together with Diana Wangeman, who is originally from Oaxaca with Zapotec roots from Teotitlán del Valle, Sobre Masa was created as a way to share the food they missed and to honor the traditions that shaped them.

What started as sharing the food we missed grew into both a restaurant and, eventually, a tortillería. At the restaurant in Brooklyn, we serve Modern Mexican food, highlighting ingredients that are central to Mexican cooking – from heirloom corn, beans, and chiles to house-made masa.

Over time, the tortilla became its own story. Through our tortillería, we bring in heirloom corn from Mexico and honor the traditional process of nixtamalization, a practice that has been used for thousands of years. From that process, we make fresh masa, tortillas, tostadas, and totopos for our restaurant and for other restaurants across New York City.

The name Sobre Mas

a carries two meanings: it is about masa, but also about sobremesa – the time spent at the table after a meal, when conversation, connection, and memory continue.

Beyond the plate

Many people see the finished plate at the restaurant, but they don’t always see the amount of labor and care behind every tortilla.

Sobre Masa is not only a restaurant. We also operate a tortillería where corn is nixtamalized, milled, and transformed into masa and tortillas for both our own kitchen and other restaurants across New York. The process starts long before service begins.

Signature Stories

One dish with a special story behind it is our Milpa Salad.

The milpa is one of the oldest agricultural systems in Mexico, where corn grows alongside ingredients like beans, squash, herbs, and chiles. It is not only a way of farming, but a way of understanding food as something connected to land, season, and community.

For us, the Milpa Salad represents that idea. It brings together ingredients rooted in Mexican cooking and reminds us that corn is never alone — it exists within an ecosystem.

We make this dish with cacahuazintle corn, the variety traditionally used for pozole, along with ayocote beans, nopales, chile verde vinaigrette, queso fresco, and pumpkin seeds.

Another dish that carries our story is the huarache, made with masa, mole amarillo, maitake mushrooms, and hoja santa oil. Mole amarillo is deeply connected to Oaxaca and to everyday food memories; it can appear in empanadas, tamales, and family meals, depending on the region and season.

Both dishes speak to the heart of Sobre Masa: masa, memory, and the relationship between food and people.

Rooted in Community

New York has shaped Sobre Masa in every way.

Our community includes guests who come to the restaurant, chefs who use our tortillas, small businesses we work with, immigrant workers, neighbors, farmers, and people who care deeply about food culture. Their support has allowed us to grow from an idea rooted in nostalgia into a business with a larger purpose.

Brooklyn has also taught us how important it is to create a space that feels both personal and open. Sobre Masa is rooted with founders from Oaxaca, but it exists in New York; a city shaped by migration, labor, culture, and constant movement. That connection feels very natural to us.

The community has pushed us to keep telling the story behind the food.

Looking Ahead

We are continuing to grow both sides of Sobre Masa: the restaurant and the tortillería.

At the restaurant, we are focusing on seasonal dishes, Oaxacan traditions, mezcal and agave distillates, and special moments that allow guests to experience Mexican food with stories.

Through the tortillería, we are expanding the way we share masa and heirloom corn with the city; through wholesale partnerships, and future retail products that make our tortillas more accessible beyond the restaurant.

We are also always open to thoughtful collaborations with chefs, artists, and businesses that share our respect and love for food, culture, and process.

We would love to see more stories about process, people, and cultural context.

There is so much that happens before the plate reaches the table: the farmers growing the corn, the producers making mezcal, the cooks preparing masa, the servers creating hospitality.

Those stories deserve to be seen.